Im back. Who knows why, and for how long? I dont. but today I had a second and felt like expessing. Steven took the girls out to take pictures and then to race tonight so I am a free woman all evening! feels odd.

I guess I can start out with this weeks menu plan since I just went shopping yesterday.

Saturday- Ohana Wings. Since it’s just me I can use up a partial bag of wings I had in the feezer. YUM. cant wait to settle in with a movie and a platefull of wings 🙂

In case you didnt know.. we are planning a vacation this fall to Disney World.

We are super excited. Our girls havent been back in the World since March of 2006. Steven and I spent a day at EPCOT after our cruise in October 2009. But it was pretty guilt ridden as we didnt tell the girls we planned to do it and got QUITE the lecture when we were found out!

SO far the plan is September 16-21. Driving down to Orlando from here and returning on the 21st. We plan to stay at the Port Orleans Resort in the Alligator Bayou section

Normally we would stay at a cheaper value resort or even offsite.. BUT we have invited Thing One’s BFF Patience along with us.(my cousin’s little girl.. we call her our “niece”) We are so excited to show her our favorite Happy Place. She has never been… and I cant wait to see it all through her eyes. The girls are really looking forward to having her along too. She is really good and we have taken her on trips before. SO.. having 5 in our room we will need an upgrade to the Port Orleans where some rooms sleep 5.

I have been working out some of our plans.. mainly where we will eat. So much of a vacation is eating in fun places. I will know a little more specifics as we get closer and Disney posts thier park hours and the dates and times for thier special Halloween themed party (which I think we will skip this time.. I know.. I know. I just cant pay extra for tickets when we will already have paid and everything. . besides we get worn out just doing regular Disney stuff) that take up the Magic Kingdom one night. We are also hoping to get a special deal where Disney will pay for our food all week. With the Disney Dining plan you get One Sit down meal, One Fast food meal, and one snack (or two.. I gotta check it out) per person for every night you stay! Good deal for 5 people!

There is still a lot of time (7 mos!), but I have a basic layout of our trip!

Day1. We like to leave home in the very early hours (2 am) to arrive in Orlando by midmorning. This is like adding a complete day to our vacation. Steven doesnt mind the nightdriving and we take it easy that day to allow him to rest. We will check into our hotel.. visit downtown disney and swim in the afternoon in all the fun pools at the resort.. then head to a fun dinner that night and an early bedtime.

Day 2

We plan to head to Magic Kingdom today.. its quintessential Disney and I cant imagine a better way to start. I plan to have us eat most breakfasts in the hotel room.. we get a mini fridge which we can stock with milk for cereal and of course Thing One will need her POPTARTS! But this morning I am thinking about a big breakfast to begin our trip.. either at the Crystal Palace or at Chef Mickey’s. Both will allow us to be at the Magic Kingdom when they open..or in Disney Speak.. at “ropedrop” I love this park. Its an all day adventure. for a late lunch perhaps Cosmic Rays or Pecos Bills for those who are familiar. Then snacks in the evening time. I cant WAIT to stroll down Mainstreet USA with a Mickey Bar! Or watch the parade sipping on a pineapple dole whip float! YUMMY!

Day 3

Today I would like to go to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Thing Two LOVES this park. Her favorite Tower of terror ride is here. We will grab breakfast and be there for ropedrop. I love the old hollywood theming here.. and I think Fantasmic is my favorite show on property. We plan to grab an early lunch here at 50’s prime Time Cafe.. Its a neat place all themed like a 50’s kitchen or livingroom. The waitresses heckle you about eating your veggies just like mama!

Day 4

Today is a little bit easier day.. still very busy and exciting though. We adore Disney’s Animal Kingdom. This is Steven’s favorite because of the animal photography. The animals practically pose for you! He loves Khali River Rapids, and the Festival of the Lion King shows..Not to mention the fact that there is a NEWish roller coaster here that I am DYING to ride. EXPEDITION EVEREST. this park closes a little earlier than the others, so we plan to head to Whispering Canyons at the Wilderness Lodge for Dinner. I hope to stay at this resort oneday.. so It will be fun to poke around there!

Day 5

Our last day in Walt Disney World will be at EPCOT. Another great fun day. We love it all here. Test Track, Spaceship earth, the world showcase and a lot of things that have changed here since our girls were last here. SO we of course cant wait to see thier reactions to the new tricks Disney has! Im planning an early lunch here at Lecelier in Canada (Thing Two wants to eat in a fancy pants restraunt. I dont think she is up to a french place.. so this will suffice) Then we will snack around the world for dinner. We have done this before trying a new snack at each country in the world showcase. Sharing all the way around. YUM. I have a few favorites that I cant forget!

The following day we plan to check out.. and head home to Dillon. The girls MUST be in school on wednesday. We are already PUSHING it taking them out for 3 days. (im hoping for a friday or a monday teacher workday in september… I WILL adjust the trip according to the school schedule!)

yay for monday and the weekly menu plan.. without which I might never post at all. hehe. I have a lot to post .. but this is just the menu… so thats all you get here 😉 ( I feel very ornery today . must be the weather) We did pretty ok with the menu last week. We did BLOW it and eat out friday night. NO MORE EATING OUT. and I mean it.. well except for Friday when we are going out for our anniversary.. and wednesday when I hope to take my best friend out for lunch. But thats it. I mean it mister!

Monday- Leftover buffet- I have a ton of leftovers in the fridge today.. so its mashed potatoes and gravy, taco salad, pizza, and all manner of odds and ends and bits and bobs tonight.

We had a pretty laid back weekend. It was actually really really nice. Thing One had a friend over (who is exhausting and eats everything in sight. PHEW she wears me out) and my niece also came over. So it was sleepover city around here.

Friday evening we had our friends the Parazoo’s over to play cards and to shoot off the fireworks we had planned to shoot off new years eve.. but couldnt because of the rain. It was all kinds of cold outside and our stupid dog was chasing the fireworks.. it was hilarious until she attacked one very large shot and it hit her in the side! I dont know whether to change her name to FLASH or to SPARKY? She was slightly singed and has a sore spot on her side…but she seems ok now. silly mutt!

Saturday the girls spent the day cleaning thier room. We had an old bunkbed in the barn and my dad brought it over to help the girls put it up. I was afraid it would be too tall for our ceilings, but it turned out ok. It sure gives them a lot more space in thier room! The mess is seeping a litte into our little hallway room.. but I plan to get it all organized this week.

Sunday was spent in discussion about this years vacation. Of course we want to go to Disney world! We are SO excited as we havent been since 08! Steven and I had been discussing it a little and had decided that we really needed ONE more big vacation before Thing One goes off to college and all. We also decided that we’d like to take our niece with us. She has never been to Disney.. or anywhere really. So we are super excited to show her the world! The girls are So SO SO excited. Now. Disney just needs to cooperate and release a free dining promotion for september! I am nervous that they might not do it this year. But they have for several years.. so Im hoping they will again. Otherwise we may have to push off for spring 2011. (which I dont want to do at all!)

My mind is spinning with posibilities and restraunt choices and and and and! I LOVE planning a trip more than just about anything!

We are still working on weight watchers.. pretty much anyway. We count points all week long and then the weekend comes and we slack off.. which I guess is pretty ok since we dont use any of our flex points all week. Im sure it comes out pretty evenly. anywho. on with the menu (The pictures arent mine.. they are just for fun)

Monday-

Turkey Chili and corn muffins

Tuesday-

Grilled pork chops, baked potato, sauteed spinach w/ garlic

Wednesday-

BBQ chicken sandwiches, baked tater tots, fresh fruit salad

Thursday-

Salmon and veggies in parchment pouches, brown rice, green beans

Friday-

Penne pasta w/ shrimp, feta, tomato, and spinach, whole wheat rolls

Saturday-

Homemade Pizza! (this is the first time I have EVER made homemade pizza crust by myself.. sort nervous about it.. but I have a kitchenade.. how hard could it be?), salad

phew! I was busy yesterday… and I meant to post before bed… but it was so darn cold coming back from church I didnt get to it. I just jumped straight into bed. It called to me like a siren in the sea. 🙂 Besides my honey likes to snuggle while we watch criminal minds and CSI NY. I meant to watch ghost hunters with him.. but I woke up an hour later to a blank screen and Steven gone into the livingroom. well! of course it was I that abandoned him and not the other way around. 🙂

Thing Two had a KILLER school day yesterday. (we are homeschooling now. since you got no update you might not have known that) We got her progress report yesterday.. I had thought we were in pretty good shape. But not so much. We have some catching up to do in a few subjects. Science and Language arts more than anything. SO. we will have rough couple weeks ahead of us. She will survive. Its just a matter of will power. JUST GOTTA DO IT. Then we will be finishing on time and not have to work in the summer months.

Thing one got her report card back yesterday too. She did awesome. 3 B’s and an A. Those are honors classes. I am very proud of her. A little worried that she is stacking herself to hard this semester though. Honors English, honors physical science, Algebra 2 and computer science all as a freshman! Sounds more adventurous than even my TOUGHEST semsester.But she thinks she can handle it. I think its gonna take a lot more homework than she realizes. Hopefully next year she will be easier on herself. I dont want her to burn out before she gets through it all!

The venison roast for dinner last night was a huge success. I didnt really care for the consistency of it. I am all about mouth feel though. The kids ate it up. SO. thats a winner. I made mashed potatoes and carrots and salad to go with it.. so that made it filling without using to many weight watchers points. Maybe 12 for the whole meal. Tonights breakfast for dinner isnt such a deal. 15 pts for 2 eggs sausage and grits. isnt as filling. But Ive been craving it. I will just have to eat soup for lunch! (progresso makes a 0 pt soup)

While shopping the other day we found a YUMMY new yogurt flavor. Its soooo good. Pear is refreshing and tasty. As I dont like the old standby strawberry yogurt I love that there are always new ones to try from Yoplait (and no I am not a paid endorser.. however I wouldnt say no if I were asked!)

I started back singing in the church choir last night. I had layed out for a while last winter with steven’s illness and then summer and then my illness. The new year seemed like a good time to get back into it. I love to sing and have really missed it a lot. Just gotta streeeetch those vocal cords a little. I felt all rusty last night.

Hopefully later today or tommorow I will post pictures from our Baltimore trip. I may have to filch some from Lisa since I didnt get to many shots of the girls playing with Alyssa. They had such a good time.. but I will save that for the trip report!

yeah, you missed me. heh Im trying to focus on ME some these days.. weight watchers, taking walks by myself, buying things to make MY life easier. I think this will make ME a better me. That cant hurt anyone right? Getting back to blogging is part of that.

You get no update. Im just jumping right back in as if Id never been gone. 123. Here goes…….

We got home last night from Baltimore. We had such a good time. It has been fun listening to my girls giving the recap to everyone. They had a blast. I loved having an “un-plan”. it made for such a fun relaxing weekend. I hope we didnt wear our hosts out toooo much! 🙂 We just love Lisa and Pete and thier family. They are such good people. I only wish they lived closer!

We stopped off in DC on our way home. There is so so much to do there. I dont think you could ever get done seeing it all. This time we went to the National Archives and to the National Museum of American History. It was ALL KINDS of cold in Washington though so even though we intended to walk to the Washington Monument and go up in the elevators we didnt. My bootie was frozen. The museum was really cool though. I loved seeing Julia Child’s kitchen. It was neat. She was one organized chick!

We got home about 11 last night so today was pretty chill. A vacation day for Thing Two in homeschool so I was thankful for that. We slept in and then ran to the grocery store. Steven, Thing One and I are starting back with Weight Watchers again so it was an expensive trip. WHY does healthy food have to cost so much? YIKES. I have a pretty yummy meal plan for the week though so it wasnt all bad.

I also bought myself/the family some new drinking glasses. The ones we had were 10 years old and getting pretty manky looking. Many of them were chipped and nasty. I really like the new ones. They are wide and shorter than the others. Cute. I also sorted through all the plastic cups too. Pitching out all the restraunt themed cups and assorted wierdness felt good. I went through all my cooking utensils today too. Out with the old cheap crap and in with … some new cheap crap. heh.

Tonight is the premiere of American Idol.. which is always big news in this house. Both girls LOVE that show. And Thing Two LOVES Ellen.. so it should be a fun season. I mostly just like to watch with them because its a fun thing to do as a family… actually I HATE the audition part of the show. I always feel so bad for the singers who have been led to believe that they are really good singers. Its sad to me. But the Things laugh and laugh. mean butts.

After a hiatus over the summer I am back. I have missed blodding to tell you the truth.. so I am happy to be back at it.

Today was a pretty busy day. Steven had an early call and had to go clear to the other side of Cheraw SC. Seemed like an awfully long way to drive. But you have to go where the jobs are. While he was gone I tackled reorganizing and clearing out our master bath. I am a bath product junkie and I had aqumulated WAY to many half empty bottles of product. Not to mention baskets of bobs and bits and weird ends of things. So, I went through it all and threw out all the junk. I also went through our medicine cabinet and tossed out all the out of date stuff and made a list of OTC meds we were out of. Nothing worse than be awakened in the middle of the night by a sniffling,coughing kiddo and not having anything to give them for it. Because of that I try to keep stocked up on Dimetapp, mentholatum, pepto bismol, ect. Nwo that I have cleared out the old.. it may be time to try some new stuff. Any suggestions?

When Steven returned it was time to take Thing Two to her NEW school and meet her teachers. This year she moves from the small primary school (that we LOVED) to a big elementary school that is fed by FOUR primaries.

Its a big school and I think T2 was a bit overwhelmed. We liked her teachers though and she was happy to find a couple of her church friends included on the class roster. After leaving the school we headed over to Wal-Mart to pick up the supplies requested by her teacher. I gave her a choice of whatever colors/styles she wanted and she took AGES to choose. They really do have some neat binders out there.. They’ve come a long way since the Lisa Frank trapper keepers we had!

After what seemed like forever we grabbed some lunch and headed home for a nap. It was storming out and it was delightful to snuggle up to my honey and listen to the thunder. It being wednesday we had youth group tonight so unfortunatly it couldnt be tooo long of a nap 🙂

Another busy day tommorow…. I know you are skintilated by my day.. but I think some daily blogging of just normal everyday journaling will get me back in the groove over here! 🙂

I love summer camp. I grew up attending an Assemblies of God church camp in Houston Alaska. Little Beaver Camp was a GREAT place to spend a week or two every July. I dont remember her specifically. But someone said that Governor Sarah Palin was a camper there one year that I attended. Neat huh? As I got older I not only attended as a camper but worked as staff. I peeled potatoes in the kitchen and ran the “snack shack” and then in later years I was a camp counselor. I have so many great memories of playing in the Lake, canoeing, campfires and fun church services. Some friendships I made at camp have lasted a lifetime.. my best friend Elizabeth even met her future husband for the first time at Little Beaver.

I love the camp experience. everything about it. So, as you can imagine I was excited a few years ago to find out that our church here in SC attends a summer camp! I have staffed there a few times over the years and LOVED it. This year, when I was laid off from my job at the cafe.. I took the opportunity to volunteer to work there all three weeks of camp. Two of which my own daughters will attend in turn.

This last week was the first week. Called MINI week since it is a day shorter than the other two camps and for Ages 6-9. (so that meant Thing 2 was a camper) We had a blast. I was responsible for 10 little girls and a 16 yr old CIT (counselor in training) . We arrived tuesday morning at 10 for a quick training session and to get our assignments. I was assuming that I would be a staffer this week. But I was asked to be a counselor. The sleeping arrangements are “dorm style” with around 7 or 8 bunk beds per dorm. One communal bathroom with 8 showers and 10 or so stalls serve the female population and likewise for the men.

The “campers” arrived at around 1pm and we hit the ground running. My CIT Rachel and I got our girls settled and said good bye to Moms and Dads. I was surprised to not have any tearful girls. They were so excited to play though.. so it didnt take long!. After an opening ceremony we headed out to play sports. Kickball, soccer, volleyball, and basketball kept us busy until 4 pm. I was pretty lucky to have a fairly athletic group so I didnt have to drag them to play.. I was glad though when we switched with the boys who had been playing on a huge waterslide and swimming in the HUGE pool. The girls we SO excited to swim. (what kid doesnt love a pool?) It was SO hot. Thats one thing we never had to worry about at LBC in Alaska! Usually it was the opposite. July can be jacket weather in Wasilla Alaska.

After swimming we headed in to get cleaned up and ready for dinner. Im sure you have heard nightmares about campfood.. but really we are pretty blessed to have good food at camp. The cooks are sensative to kid pallets and we ate a lot of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese and koolade all week. They had a nice salad bar available to workers though.. so that was a nice touch.

After eating we all got ready to head to the evening services. The speaker admin chose this year was AMAZING. He is a powerlifter and lifted all kind s of heavy things.. tree logs and broke cinderblocks with his head and the like. The kids loved it. He used all kinds of object lessons to teach kids the Verse of the week

For God has not given me a spirit of fear but of Love, and Power and a Sound Mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

They had dancers and strobe lights and a smoke machine going. It was pretty impressive. The theme this year is UFC (ultimate fighting christian) and they decorated the chapel to look like a fight ring. So cool. The little boys especially loved it. They printed up cute t shirts in red and white with UFC on the back.

Church services lasted maybe an hour and the kids played in the chapel/gym afterward. They had blow up moon bouncers and a camp store selling all kinds of kid junk.. and the t shirts and the like.. as well as a canteen selling hot dogs and nachos and piles and piles of candy. YES! nothing like getting kids sugared up at 10 pm and then getting them all riled up with crazy “camp games” like chubby bunny and hula hoop races. We sang silly songs and did the “chicken dance” as well as the YMCA. I dont know about the kids.. but I was EXHAUSTED when 11pm finally came around. I was never so glad to crawl into the bottom bunk and crash. My girls were really good about bedtimes.. I was pretty lucky because I heard nightmare stories from other counselors about finally getting to sleep at 3 am. They giggled for only a few minutes before they were crashed out.

Reville is 7 am and it came SO EARLY. ohhh my goodness I was SORE. This old body isnt used to running on the soccer feild and playing so hard all day! Each day’s schedule was pretty much the same..

3pm olympic games (water games.. one day the firetrucks came and sprayed the kids sprinkler style.. they LOVED it. They also had a HUGE slip and slide one day)

430pm- showers.. (yeah for 145 campers.. they must have HUGE waterheater.. I never had a cold shower)

530 dinner

630- finish getting ready for church (kids had to wear clean clothes and be clean for church..)

7 church services

9 late night live (games ect)

11 pm- lights out

phew. Yesterday was the camp closing and pickup. I camp home and slept most of the afternoon. I was so tired! Today I am zipping my laundry through the wash and re-packing for week 2 that starts at 9 am monday. It will be an easier more laid back week though as it is ages 13-18. More attention to keeping boys and girls hormones in control than anything else! 🙂